Mahalaya

An old Bengali proverb says that if the 'kash' has started flowering, you know 
the rains are over and autumn has begun. The hour of the goddesses is at hand 
and Bengal awaits them expectantly - Durga, Lakshmi and Kali.

Once a year, in the autumnal month of Ashwin, she comes home to her parents, 
together with her four children, Ganesh, Laxmi, Karttik and Saraswati, and 
enjoys all the love and attention lavished on her. Unfortunately, this visit 
lasts only three days, and on the fourth day she starts on her journey back to 
her husband's abode in the mountain kingdom of Kailash.

Seven days before the puja, from the day of Mahalaya starts Devipaksha. People 
take a holy dip in the river Ganga at dawn and pray for the departed souls - 
the act is called 'Tarpan'. Since the early 1930s, homes in Bengal reverberate 
with the immortal verses from Chandi Kabya in the recorded voice of late 
Birendra Krishna Bhadra and aired by All India Radio in a programme termed as 
Mahisasura Mardini, narrating the birth of Goddess Durga and her eventual 
fight with Mahisasura.

Durga - goddess of deliverance - comes to earth on the seventh day after the 
autumn new moon. She is depicted by the 'kumors' or potters as a resplendent 
golden figure standing on a lion's back, each of her ten arms bearing a 
particular weapon, as she triumphs over the demon Mahisasura.

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